A Google sign is seen as members of the Alphabet Workers Union CWA hold a rally outside the Google office in response to recent layoffs in New York on February 2, 2023. PHOTO AFP Google owner Alphabet Inc will launch a chatbot service and more artificial intelligence for its search engine and developers, an answer to Microsoft Corp's rivalry to lead a new wave of computing.
Microsoft plans to hold its own AI reveal on Tuesday.
The cascade of news shows how Silicon Valley is anticipating huge change from so-called generative AI, a technology that can create prose or other content on command and free white-collar workers' time.
The emergence of ChatGPT, a chatbot from Microsoft-backed OpenAI that could disrupt how consumers search for information, has been one of the biggest challenges to Google in recent memory.
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In a blog post by Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai, Sundar said that the company is opening a conversational AI service called Bard to test users' feedback, followed by a public release in the coming weeks.
He said that Google plans to add AI features to its search engine that synthesize material for complex queries, like whether learning guitar or piano is easier. Google presents text that exists elsewhere on the Web for questions where the answer is clear.
The timing of the update for search shows how the company is bolstering its service while Microsoft is doing the same for Bing, embedding OpenAI's capabilities in it.
Microsoft plans to imbue AI into its products and plans to brief news outlets on developments it did not specify, with CEO Satya Nadella, according to an invitation seen by Reuters. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said he would also attend the event.
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How Google tries to distinguish Bard from OpenAI's ChatGPT was not clear. Pichai said that the new service draws information from the internet and ChatGPT's knowledge is up to date as of 2021.
Bard wants to combine the breadth of the world's knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our AI, Pichai said.
A company engineer called it sentient last year, a claim that technology giant and scientists have dismissed as the reason behind the new chatbot is LaMDA, Google's AI that generated text with such skill that a company engineer called it sentient.
In a demo of the service, Bard invites users to give it a prompt while warning that its response may be inappropriate or inaccurate. The demo showed three answers to a question about a space telescope's discoveries.
Google is relying on a version of LaMDA that requires less computing power to serve more users and improve with feedback, Pichai said.
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In December, ChatGPT has turned away users because of explosive growth, with UBS analysts reporting that it had 57 million unique visitors, outpacing potentially TikTok in adoption.
Starting next month, Pichai said that Google plans to give technology tools, first powered by LaMDA and later by other AI, to creators and enterprises.